PARMAN'S PAGE: Space News | Sports & Movie Info | Journal

Video of the Day: An Obsession with Hot Wings...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 04:59:00 +0000

Check out this latest episode of Hot Ones Versus by the First We Feast channel...featuring a hilarious faceoff between Obsession's Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston!

This video had lots of funny moments between the duo—from Johnston needing to bring up the fact that he was "a quarter Mexican" after lightheartedly picking on Navarrette's Latino yearning for hot and spicy foods, namely hot Cheetos (she jokingly called upon the Mexican community to 'cancel' Johnston for his insolence), to the "horror charades" game at the end where Inde excitedly guessed that the correct answer to Michael's question was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

This Hot Ones Versus episode had some heartwarming revelations as well...such as the fact that Inde always picked up the phone whenever Michael called her, even though she's now "booked and busy" with such upcoming projects as Marvel Studios' 2028 X-Men movie and a sci-fi thriller called The Waffle House Index. Also, Navarrette made Johnston blush after genuinely saying that she would never replace him with another actor to play Bear in Obsession—even if she was offered $10 million to do so. Michael responded in kind that he couldn't picture anyone else to portray Freaky Nikki in Curry Barker's hit horror film.

Anyways, view the episode below before I end up spoiling more moments in it! Just one more question: Did Inde secretly intend on making Michael look like Joaquin Phoenix's Joker when she drew on his face? Watch Hot Ones Versus now!

Another Status Update on America's Newest Great Observatory...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 06:37:00 +0000

NASA

NASA Roman’s Planet Imager Has Powered On (News Release - September 1)

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has successfully activated the mission’s Coronagraph Instrument, which will block starlight to view planets and dusty disks around nearby stars. Now the instrument will undergo a months-long series of calibrations and tests prior to beginning full science operations.

The coronagraph power-on began at 7:27 a.m. EDT and was completed at 8:22 a.m. on September 1.

The Roman Coronagraph is a system of optics, masks, self-flexing mirrors, and sensors designed to demonstrate the most advanced technologies ever flown in space for directly imaging planets around other stars. It will block the glare from stars and make it possible for scientists to see the faint reflected light from planets in orbit around them.

Using the coronagraph, scientists will photograph worlds and dusty disks in visible light to help us see giant planets that are older, colder, and in closer orbits than the hot, young super-Jupiters direct imaging has mainly revealed so far. The Roman coronagraph team will conduct a series of pre-planned observations for a total of three months spread across the mission’s first year-and-a-half of operations.

In addition to direct imaging, Roman will also find planets via the microlensing and transit methods. Read more about the wide array of worlds that Roman will study here.

To learn more about Roman’s commissioning process, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/roman-space-telescope/roman-commissioning/

Source: NASA.Gov

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The Latest Update on America's Next Saturn-bound Robotic Explorer...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 04:01:00 +0000

NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Ed Whitman

NASA’s Dragonfly Gets Wired Up While Titan Landing Area Is Named (News Release)

Peeking into the clean room at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, it might be one of the first things you notice about NASA’s Dragonfly: the dozens of silver cables snaking around and through the structure of the in-progress, Titan-bound rotorcraft.

Collectively, these bundles of wires, cables, and connectors make up the spacecraft’s electrical harness. It’s Dragonfly’s nervous system, fitted to securely transmit power and data between the lander’s computers, actuators, sensors, scientific instruments, and battery.

“The harness doesn’t do anything by itself, but it is necessary for everything else to function,” said Jackie Perry, Dragonfly lander harness lead at APL, which is responsible for designing, building and operating the rotorcraft for NASA. “It’s critical hardware that exists only to serve the rest of the lander. We can’t do anything without it.”

Perry’s small team of engineers and technicians reached a major milestone in July when it installed the harness on the flight fuselage. “Once the flight structure was delivered and the remote interface units and temperature sensors were installed, we were able to start laying the harness,” Perry said.

The wiring harness is typically one of the first components delivered to a spacecraft. Dragonfly passed its critical design review in 2022; fabrication began in late 2024 and finished about a year later. The wire is silver-coated copper, insulated in a heat-resistant, durable polymer coating and wrapped with aluminum, which is then attached to plastic and metal connectors.

Dragonfly is scheduled to launch in summer 2028 and reach Saturn’s moon Titan in late 2034.

Dragonfly’s operating environment on Titan poses some unique challenges. Because of the rotorcraft’s thermos bottle design – insulated to retain heat from its nuclear power source and stay warm in Titan’s extremely cold conditions – the harness had to be designed to route under a layer of thick foam insulation on the outside of the lander and accommodate the circulation of that warm air through the inside. The rotorcraft’s high power demands require both 4- and 8-gauge wire, Perry said, yet the harness has to be flexible enough to weave through a packed interior that includes the flight system and instrument boxes, as well as a nearly 300-pound battery.

The team will continue connecting the harness to science instruments and other flight components as they’re delivered to APL for integration and additional testing.

Titan target area lands name

The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the global body responsible for officially designating objects in space, has approved a name for the large dune field where Dragonfly will land on Titan: Ahmakiq Undae. The region consists of dunes and interdune areas to the south of Selk Crater, extending to the edge of a range of hills or mountains.

In the Mayan tradition, people appealed to the spirit Ahmakiq (pronounced “ah-mahk-eek”) to stop strong winds from damaging their crops. The name literally translates to the “one who locks up the wind,” and aligns with the IAU convention of naming dune fields – or undae, in Latin after gods and goddesses of wind. The Dragonfly team chose Ahmakiq from a list of IAU suggestions.

Once Dragonfly reaches Titan, the rotorcraft will conduct a 3.3-year primary mission, exploring diverse environments from organic dunes to deposits associated with an impact crater – Selk Crater – where liquid water and complex organic materials key to life once existed together. Scientific analysis indicates that the impact that formed Selk melted the icy bedrock, potentially creating a large temporary pool that could have remained liquid for hundreds to thousands of years under an insulating ice layer, like winter ponds on Earth.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Jason Barnes

The Latest Status on America's Newest Great Observatory...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 05:15:37 +0000

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

NASA Roman Space Telescope’s Antenna, ‘Visor’ Deployed (News Release)

Roman’s antenna and visor-like sunshade have successfully deployed.

Roman will downlink the highest data volume of any NASA astrophysics mission so far via its high-gain antenna, which measures 5.6 feet wide yet only weighs 24 pounds. It’s made of a carbon composite material that weighs very little but will still withstand the spacecraft’s wide temperature fluctuations. Its large size will help Roman send radio signals across a million miles of intervening space to Earth.

At one frequency, the dual-band antenna will receive commands and send back information about the spacecraft’s health and location. It will use another frequency to transmit a deluge of data at up to 500 megabits per second to ground stations in New Mexico, Australia and Japan. These locations are spread out so the Roman team will consistently be able to communicate with the spacecraft.

The antenna deployment lasted about 4 minutes and concluded at 2:03 p.m. EDT on August 31.

The deployable aperture cover, which is a large sunshade designed to keep unwanted light out of the telescope, was released next. It deployed via three booms that were triggered electronically to spring upward. It lasted about 8 minutes and was successfully completed at 6:05 a.m. EDT on September 1.

Roman’s next major milestone is the Coronagraph Instrument activation. In a couple of weeks, the Wide Field Instrument will power on. Both instruments will run through a series of calibrations and tests throughout the rest of Roman’s three-month commissioning period.

NASA anticipates releasing Roman’s first images by early 2027.

To learn more about Roman’s commissioning process, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/roman-space-telescope/roman-commissioning/

Source: NASA.Gov

The Latest Update on America's Newest Great Observatory...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 03:33:00 +0000

NASA - Eyes on the Solar System

NASA’s Roman Completes First Mid-Course Correction Burn (News Release)

At 12:02 p.m. EDT, Roman began an approximately 3-minute mid-course correction burn to adjust its trajectory toward its final orbit.

It’s the first of two planned orbit adjustments to keep Roman on course for the second Lagrange point, L2. The other, if needed, is planned for later this week, and Roman’s orbital insertion will take place approximately 100 days post-launch. Once in orbit around L2, Roman will only require periodic station-keeping burns roughly every 28 days.

Trace Roman’s path here, and follow along with the blog for further updates.

To learn more about Roman’s commissioning process, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/roman-space-telescope/roman-commissioning/

Source: NASA.Gov

AMERICA'S NEWEST GREAT OBSERVATORY HAS HEADED TO SPACE!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 19:15:00 +0000

SpaceX

NASA’s Dark Universe-Seeking Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Launches (News Release)

Now on a three-month, million-mile journey to its final orbit, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will soon reveal the Universe’s darkest secrets. The mission launched at 7:26 a.m. EDT on Sunday, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Roman pairs a large field of view with crisp infrared vision to explore vast swaths of the sky and probe deeply into cosmic history. This flagship mission will help astronomers explore dark matter, dark energy, and worlds outside of our Solar System, known as exoplanets. Its surveys will support a broad range of research extending far beyond the mission’s main science goals.

“Roman is exactly the kind of success story we want to see across NASA,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “Delivered ahead of schedule and on budget, this mission reflects more than a decade of dedication from the NASA workforce and our industry partners. Now, Roman will give us a new atlas of the Universe, push the boundaries of discovery, and demonstrate what is possible when America’s space program pairs bold ambition with disciplined execution.”

The ground control team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, began receiving telemetry data from Roman seven minutes after launch. The Falcon Heavy rocket performed as expected, separating from the observatory 31 minutes into the flight. After separating from the center core, the rocket’s boosters safely returned to the launch site for refurbishment.

“Roman will be a discovery machine that will bring us closer than ever before to answering humanity’s most profound questions about our cosmic history,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “With its large field of view and fast survey speeds, Roman will usher us into a new era of discovery and make the invisible visible, setting the foundation for humanity’s search for life beyond our Solar System.”

During launch and early orbit, Roman uses the Near Space Network’s ground stations and relay satellites to exchange tracking, telemetry and command data with ground controllers. About 70 minutes after launch, the Deep Space Network takes over communications and guides Roman towards the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, about one million miles from Earth. Roman connects to that network through the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex in Australia first.

Approximately six hours later the data relay will transfer to the Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex in Spain and then to the Goldstone Deep Space Communication Complex in California, ensuring continuous contact with Roman throughout its journey.

The Roman team also confirmed successful deployment of the observatory’s solar panels and lower instrument sun shade an hour and 23 minutes after launch. Within the upcoming days, Roman’s high-gain antenna and visor-like deployable aperture cover will deploy, ground controllers will initiate the first of two-mid-course corrections, and the Coronagraph Instrument will power on. This instrument will demonstrate the technology that future missions like NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory concept could use to image Earth-like planets in the search for life in the Universe.

Roman’s Coronagraph will take a giant step in that direction by snapping pictures of Jupiter-like planets.

A few weeks into Roman’s voyage, its primary instrument, the Wide Field Instrument, will activate. This 300-megapixel infrared camera has 18 4K detectors, each about the size of a saltine cracker. These detectors collect photons of light that will be decoded into crisp cosmic panoramas.

Thanks to the observatory’s rigid design and stable optical performance, it will rapidly scan the sky without needing substantial time between separate observations. The Roman telescope is designed to survey the Universe a thousand times faster than NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

Throughout the rest of Roman’s three-month commissioning period, scientists will run the instruments through a series of calibrations and tests. NASA anticipates releasing Roman’s first images by early 2027.

Roman will send back 1.4 terabytes of data every day, the highest data rate of any NASA astrophysics mission, so far. Machine learning, artificial intelligence, and citizen scientists will help sift through it and flag significant findings, which astronomers can then study.

“We’ve never been able to view the Universe with eyes like Roman’s before,” said Julie McEnery, Roman’s senior project scientist at NASA Goddard. “There’s no telling what more we’ll know and have seen by this time next year.”

Roman is the fourth primary mission that NASA has launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket. Earlier this year, the agency’s Launch Services Program worked with SpaceX to accelerate the launch date to accommodate the space telescope’s early completion.

The telescope is managed at NASA Goddard with participation by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and a team of scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems Inc., L3Harris Technologies, and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging. Contributions to Roman are also made by ESA, JAXA, the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / John Kraus

NASA / John Kraus

NASA / Joel Kowsky

SpaceX

NASA / Jolearra Tshiteya

NASA / Jolearra Tshiteya

Flying at Light Speed for 204 Months Now...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:33:00 +0000

Seventeen Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d in the summer of 2009.

As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Friday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across approximately 100 trillion miles (161 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of seventeen light-years.

The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take about 3 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Carry on!

America's Next Great Observatory Is Finally Meeting Its Rocket!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:23:00 +0000

Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

Roman Space Telescope Transport from PHSF to LC-39A (Photo Release - August 25)

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, encapsulated in its payload fairing, travels from the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to the SpaceX hangar at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, ahead of mating to a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

Roman’s science instruments are designed to help researchers understand dark energy, the mysterious force accelerating the Universe’s expansion. The observatory will also map how galaxies form, cluster and evolve by tracing the influence of dark matter.

Liftoff from NASA Kennedy is targeted for no earlier than Sunday, August 30, 2026.

Source: NASA.Gov

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Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

NASA / Kim Shiflett

NASA / Kim Shiflett

SpaceX

A New Radio Dish for Space Exploration Has Emerged in the California Desert...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 04:59:00 +0000

NASA / JPL - Caltech

New Next-Gen Dish Adds Muscle to NASA’s Deep Space Network (News Release)

Deep Space Station 23 at NASA’s Goldstone facility in the California desert is the latest next-generation antenna to be added by the network’s enhancement project.

NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in California is marking the addition of a brand new 34-meter-wide (114-foot-wide) radio frequency antenna to the agency’s deep space communications and navigation system. The network uses giant dish antennas located at three global facilities to support more than 40 spacecraft exploring the Solar System and interstellar space.

The new Deep Space Station 23 (DSS-23) is located at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex, near Barstow, and is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

NASA leadership and personnel as well as dignitaries gathered at the complete DSS-23 antenna for a ceremonial ribbon cutting. It’s the latest to be added as part of the Deep Space Network’s Aperture Enhancement Project, which began in 2009 to upgrade and expand the network by adding six new 34-meter multifrequency beam-waveguide antennas. These versatile dishes can enhance many missions operating over different radio frequencies.

“By expanding the Deep Space Network, we are strengthening the communications foundation NASA needs for the bold missions ahead — from exploring more of the Moon than ever before to peering deeper into the Solar System,” said James Kenyon, associate administrator of the Research and Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This new antenna will help us deliver on our national goals for space exploration and push beyond the limits of what once seemed impossible.”

After completing a testing campaign from May through July to demonstrate its capabilities, the new DSS-23 began operations on August 3, tracking NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Since then, it has been communicating with dozens of missions such as NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Psyche, Juno, Voyager 1 and other robotic spacecraft in deep space.

“The addition of this next-generation antenna brings us closer to a completely modernized network that embraces advanced technology to ensure NASA’s leadership in deep space communications,” said Dave Gallagher, director of JPL. “After over 60 years of continuous operations supporting consequential missions, these upgrades prime the network for a new era of exploration. The teams that designed, planned and built DSS-23 should be proud.”

Enhanced capabilities

Construction of DSS-23 began in February 2020. After the 133-ton metal reflector framework was placed and bolted atop the antenna’s pedestal in December 2024, engineers installed the panels to the framework that reflect radio frequency signals transmitted to and received from spacecraft. Then came the careful process of calibrating the antenna so that it can work in concert with the rest of the network.

It is the fifth antenna at Goldstone (joining three 34-meter antennas and one 70-meter, or 230-foot, antenna) and the fifth enhancement project antenna to join the network, which includes antennas at the DSN’s Goldstone, Madrid, and Canberra, Australia, complexes. Multifrequency beam waveguide antennas direct signals down to a stable, climate-controlled underground room, rather than housing heavy, sensitive electronic equipment on the moving antenna dish. In addition to offering versatility, this design allows easy access for maintenance and upgrades to the system.

“The biggest challenge wasn’t actually constructing the antenna. It was transforming a complex collection of mechanical, electrical, software, radio frequency, and infrastructure systems into a single, mission-ready asset,” said Germaine Aziz, manager of the Deep Space Network Aperture Enhancement Project at JPL. “Every subsystem must be integrated, calibrated, and verified to operate with extraordinary precision and reliability before it can support NASA’s deep space missions.”

The enhancement project will be complete when a sixth enhancement-project antenna, Deep Space Station 33, comes online at the Canberra facility in 2029, bringing the total number of 34-meter antennas across the network to 13. The 34-meter antennas can be arrayed (combined and operated together) to provide an equivalent communications backup for each facility’s single 70-meter antenna, which, after more than 50 years of near-continuous operation, are getting increasingly costly to maintain and repair.

Managed by Caltech for NASA, JPL manages the agency’s Deep Space Network with the oversight of NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) Program within NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate. More than 100 NASA and non-NASA missions rely on the Deep Space Network and Near Space Network. They include missions that support astronauts aboard the International Space Station and future Artemis missions, monitoring Earth, exploring the Moon, and exploring the Solar System and beyond.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

America's Next Great Observatory Is Ready to Meet Its Rocket!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 22:53:00 +0000

NASA / Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

Roman Space Telescope Encapsulation (Photo Release - August 21)

Teams inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida encapsulate the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope within the payload fairing on Friday, August 21, 2026, ahead of mating to a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

Encapsulation shields the spacecraft during rollout, ascent, and the early phases of flight.

Roman will investigate dark energy and dark matter, conduct a statistical census of planetary systems, and enable a broad range of additional astrophysics research.

Liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy is targeted for no earlier than Sunday, August 30, 2026.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

NASA / Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

NASA / Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

Photos of the Day: New Additions to the OBSESSION Collection...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 04:11:00 +0000

Richard T. Par

So earlier today, I got these three One Wish Willows in the mail! Why did I buy these Obsession movie collectibles, you ask? Here's why:

- I wanted one Willow to place on my bookshelf for display...next to the package for my CD copy of Rock Burwell's terrific music score for Curry Barker's hit horror film
- I wanted another Willow to make a fake wish for world peace (and by that I mean fake wishing to win the lottery or at least move to a better city)
- And I wanted one last Willow to um, collect dust somewhere else in my house

I should've just bought two Willows! It was only $24 for three, though.

Richard T. Par

Richard T. Par

The Latest Update on America's Next Great Observatory...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 06:11:00 +0000

NASA

Launch Dress Rehearsal Complete Ahead of NASA Roman Space Telescope Liftoff (News Release)

The team preparing to launch NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope completed a mission dress rehearsal on Thursday from Florida’s space coast.

During the exercise, Roman teams ran through a full end-to-end simulation of launch-day operations leading up to liftoff. They practiced powering up the spacecraft, simulated fueling operations for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, conducted mock weather briefings, and practiced troubleshooting a variety of scenarios.

This rehearsal is a standard part of preparation and contributes to mission success, especially since NASA missions often involve unique requirements specific to a given spacecraft. During the simulation, the team was on console at NASA and SpaceX facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and SpaceX facilities at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center, where they tested and demonstrated proficiency on everything from communications to mission systems.

Completing the rehearsal brings the team one step closer to sending Roman on its mission to address essential questions about dark energy, planets outside our Solar System, and infrared astrophysics. By conducting wide-field surveys, the telescope will explore the Universe’s structure, evolution and composition.

NASA and SpaceX are targeting launch no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT on Sunday, August 30, from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.

Source: NASA.Gov

Video of the Day: The Season 2 Teaser Trailer for AHSOKA!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 04:43:00 +0000

Last night, Lucasfilm released the poster above and the teaser trailer below for Ahsoka Season 2...which premieres on Disney+ five months from now!

This latest update for the Star Wars streaming series was unveiled at the D23 Expo in California's Anaheim Convention Center. Reprising the role of Ahsoka is Rosario Dawson, with Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Sabine Wren), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Hera Syndulla), Ivanna Sakhno (Shin Hati), Eman Esfandi (Ezra Bridger), David Tennant (as the voice of Huyang), Ariana Greenblatt (young Ahsoka), Lars Mikkelsen (Grand Admiral Thrawn) and Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker) making their return as well, respectively.

Rory McCann replaces the late Ray Stevenson as Baylan Skoll, the fallen Jedi who got stuck on the planet Peridea with Ahsoka, Sabine Wren and Shin Hati (as well as the Force Ghost of Anakin Skywalker) at the end of Season 1.

I absolutely can't wait for Ahsoka Season 2—which promises to showcase just how cunning Grand Admiral Thrawn will be as he takes on the New Republic (which he only recognizes as the Rebel Alliance). It's been over 31 years since I read Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire trilogy (where Thrawn made his debut), but I still remember Thrawn being such an unstoppable foe in those novels! The second season of Ahsoka definitely appears to be up to the task in conveying this in live-action...moreso than Thrawn's appearances in Season 1 and Star Wars Rebels, respectively.

It also looks like we're gonna get some awesome space battles (with the B-Wing, my favorite starfighter to fly in the classic 1993 X-Wing video game, leaping into action against Thrawn's Star Destroyer Chimaera and the rest of his Imperial forces) and lightsaber battles between Ahsoka, Shin, Huyang, Ezra, Baylan, Anakin and company.

Ahsoka Season 2 gets released on January 20!

Artwork of the Day: The Three Faces of (Freaky) Nikki...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 04:55:00 +0000

Richard T. Par

Just thought I'd share these three illustrations that I drew last week of Nikki Freeman, Inde Navarrette's iconic character from the blockbuster horror film Obsession.

I watched so many reels on Instagram of amazing artwork drawn by other folks of Nikki that I had the urge to draw Bear's dream girl as well (Bear, of course, is played by Michael Johnston in Obsession, respectively).

There are so many great screenshots of Nikki in Obsession that I wanted to emulate using a mechanical pencil and a sheet of paper, but I felt that this trio of drawings was enough!

Anyways, Obsession is still being shown in theaters...while you can also stream it on apps like Peacock as well as purchase it on regular DVD and Blu-ray. I prefer DVD or Blu-ray (if you can no longer see it on the big screen)— Support physical media! No, Focus Features and Blumhouse Productions aren't paying me to promote Curry Barker's hit horror film.

Richard T. Par

Richard T. Par

An Update on America's Next Interstellar-bound Probe...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 03:41:00 +0000

NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / SwRI

NASA’s New Horizons Finds Evidence of Recent Liquid on Pluto’s Surface (News Release)

A new analysis of imagery collected during NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft’s 2015 encounter with Pluto provides evidence that liquid nitrogen is rising to Pluto’s surface through cracks in the northern edge of the Sputnik Planitia, part of the massive heart-shaped glacier on the dwarf planet’s surface. This is the first evidence of recently flowing liquid on Pluto.

“Pluto never stops surprising us,” said Alan Stern, principal investigator of New Horizons and lead study author from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “In addition to suggesting that liquids have recently expressed themselves on Pluto’s surface, this result also suggests a new kind of time-variable feature on Pluto.”

The Sputnik Planitia is a vast, frozen nitrogen glacier on Pluto, larger than the U.S. states of Texas and Oklahoma combined. In 2015, New Horizons’ images of the northernmost portions of this region revealed city-sized geologic convection cells on Sputnik Planitia separated by both thin dark linear and more diffuse dark features, suggesting historical liquid flows. Now the new research, published on July 31 in the Planetary Science Journal, indicates that these dark linear and diffuse features may be occasionally and temporarily wetted, perhaps from time to time, by a liquid, most likely liquid nitrogen.

The journal paper’s authors include both planetary science experts in Pluto and experts in terrestrial glaciology.

Surface patterns on northern Sputnik Planitia have been darkened in ways that resemble glacial features on Earth that have been wetted by rain or by the subsurface emergence of liquids to the surface. Pluto’s atmospheric and thermal conditions make liquid nitrogen rain physically impossible, suggesting that liquid nitrogen is flowing up from underneath the glacier.

Source: NASA.Gov

Over a Million Virtual Passengers Are Set to Launch Aboard America's Next Great Observatory...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 20:59:00 +0000

NASA / Jolearra Tshiteya

NASA’s Roman Telescope to Carry 1.35 Million Names to Deep Space (News Release)

On July 27, technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida installed a memory card containing 1,350,144 names as part of a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The names were submitted by people globally, including astronauts from Artemis II and Artemis III. The memory card will travel with the Roman observatory to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out.

Roman is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program. Roman championed space-based observatories that could study the Universe from above Earth’s hazy atmosphere while making their data broadly available to the scientific community.

NASA and SpaceX are targeting launch for no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT on Sunday, August 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Jolearra Tshiteya

The Latest Update on America's Next Great Observatory...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 04:53:00 +0000

NASA / Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

NASA Fuels Roman Space Telescope for Late August Launch (News Release)

Technicians completed fueling NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, bringing it an important step closer to launch. On July 25, the team completed operations that carefully loaded 290 gallons of hydrazine fuel into the observatory at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

After launch and separation from the rocket, Roman will use this onboard propellant to perform maneuvers as it travels to Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, located about one million miles from Earth. There, about four times the distance to the Moon, it will have an ideal home for astronomy.

Roman will use its propellant to power two types of thrusters that help it stay in its planned orbit around L2 and ensure the solar array panels face the Sun, which is the observatory’s main source of power throughout the mission. Roman has a five-year primary mission, and potentially enough fuel to support an additional five years for an extended mission. The Roman team recently cleaned and checked out the six solar array panels to prepare them for launch.

Researchers are eager to study thousands of exoplanets that Roman will discover, to learn how closely they resemble Earth. They will also use Roman to study the mystery of dark energy and why it’s causing the Universe to expand faster over time.

Now that fueling is complete, technicians will soon attach Roman to a device that secures to the rocket’s top stage. After that, Roman will be encapsulated within the rocket’s protective shell, known as a payload fairing. The payload fairing protects the spacecraft from aerodynamic forces and heat during ascent.

Launching nine months ahead of schedule, NASA and SpaceX are targeting liftoff for no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT on Sunday, August 30, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.

Source: NASA.Gov

The Latest Update on Rocket Lab's First Interplanetary Spacecraft...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 06:41:00 +0000

NASA / UCB - SSL / NAU - Radiant / Lucint

NASA’s ESCAPADE Snaps Family Portrait of Earth, Moon (News Release)

On July 3, one of NASA’s two Mars-destined ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft captured photos of Earth and the Moon in visible and thermal infrared light. At the time, the spacecraft was 363,250 miles (584,600 kilometers) from Earth and 115,600 miles (186,100 kilometers) from the Moon, making the Moon appear relatively large.

Taken with the Sun only partly illuminating Earth and the Moon, the visible light image shows the two bodies as crescents, with only around 8% of each face sunlit. Yet in the thermal infrared image, the shadowed hemisphere of Earth is illuminated by its own heat from both the atmosphere and surface, glowing at -10 to -44° Fahrenheit (250 to 280 kelvins). Without the insulating blankets of oceans and atmospheres, the Moon’s far side remains at a much cooler -280° Fahrenheit (100 kelvins).

The ESCAPADE mission used its Visible and Infrared Observation System cameras, provided by Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, to capture the images, which are more than just road trip photo album snaps.

"We are thrilled that ESCAPADE was able to accommodate these excellent space-qualified cameras which will search for visible Martian aurora and investigate thermal properties of the Martian surface and atmosphere,” said Rob Lillis, the mission’s principal investigator at the University of California, Berkeley. “Since Earth and the Moon are well-known targets, imaging them provides an important calibration check for ESCAPADE’s cameras.”

The ESCAPADE spacecraft, which were built by Rocket Lab, are currently in a “loiter” orbit around Lagrange point 2, a location in space about a million miles from Earth. In November 2026, the spacecraft will fly by Earth to use the planet’s gravity to slingshot their way to Mars. When the spacecraft arrive in September 2027, they will study how a million-mile-per-hour stream of material flowing from the Sun, known as solar wind, interacts with the Martian environment and how that drives atmospheric loss at the Red Planet.

The ESCAPADE mission is funded by NASA’s Heliophysics Division and is part of the NASA Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration program. The UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory leads the mission with key partners Rocket Lab; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Advanced Space; and Blue Origin.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / UCB - SSL / NAU - Radiant / Lucint

Image of the Day: Marking Half a Century Since America First Landed on the Red Planet...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 04:49:00 +0000

NASA

Today marks 50 years since NASA reached the surface of Mars with the safe landing of its Viking 1 lander. Viking 1's sister craft Viking 2 triumphantly set foot on the Red Planet less than three months later...on September 3, 1976.

Over the next five decades, America would send more robotic probes to the Martian surface: Mars Pathfinder and its Sojourner rover in 1997, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in 2004, the Phoenix Mars lander in 2008, the Curiosity Mars rover in 2012, the InSight Mars lander in 2018, and the Perseverance Mars rover with its Ingenuity Mars helicopter in 2021.

When will the next U.S. Mars landing occur? The Mars Sample Return mission was originally scheduled to launch this year. Alas, that was not meant to be.

Instead, three Mars helicopters dubbed Skyfall will be sent to the Red Planet courtesy of the nuclear-powered Space Reactor-1 Freedom mission in late 2028. Stay tuned!

Over a Million Names Will Virtually Fly on America's Next Great Observatory!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 05:11:00 +0000

NASA / Jolearra Tshiteya

Roman Space Telescope SD Card Abrading and Bonding (Photo Release)

A technician inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida installs a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names as part of a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Friday, July 17, 2026.

The names, submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions, will travel with the Roman observatory to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out.

Roman is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Jolearra Tshiteya

NASA / Jolearra Tshiteya

NASA / Jolearra Tshiteya

NASA / Jolearra Tshiteya

NASA / Jolearra Tshiteya

A Random Post About OBSESSION...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 05:57:00 +0000

This image that I recently saw on YouTube makes me sad. All Nikki Freeman (wonderfully played by Inde Navarrette) wanted to do was go home for the night and get some sleep...and aspire to become a writer and feel loved out in the world. At the end of the hit horror film Obsession, the cowardice of Bear (superbly portrayed by Michael Johnston) and the One Wish Willow tragically turned her into a monster instead.

Nikki Freeman (as both pre-wish Nikki and Freaky Nikki) is one of the most tragic figures to appear on the big screen.

If you would like to hear a 5-hour loop of Nikki's theme track from Rock Burwell's haunting music score for Obsession, click on the video below.

"I wish Nikki Freeman loved me more than anyone in the entire world.”

The Latest Update on America's Next Saturn-bound Robotic Explorer...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 06:19:00 +0000

NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Ed Whitman

NASA’s Dragonfly Clears Key Tests as Titan Rotorcraft Takes Shape (News Release)

NASA’s Dragonfly is starting to look less like a collection of spacecraft parts and more like the rotorcraft that will fly across the surface of Titan, Saturn’s hazy moon.

The mission reached a major milestone on June 29, when the Dragonfly team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, delivered the nearly 13-foot-long fuselage for the next phase of spacecraft integration ahead of schedule. The delivery followed a roughly month-long process of structural testing of the lander frame assembly, which carried many of the features that give the Dragonfly rotorcraft its unmistakable shape — including its landing skids, the cap for the spacecraft’s power source, and the arms that will eventually hold its eight sets of rotors.

“It was pretty awesome to see the lander, as we designed it, become real,” said Hunter Reeling, Dragonfly thermal-mechanical integration and test lead from APL.

With structural testing complete and the fuselage delivered, the team started integrating the mechanical, thermal and electrical systems on July 1, kicking off the process that will turn the lander into the flying science lab it’s meant to be.

Throughout the month, they’ll populate Dragonfly’s fuselage with the flight bulkheads, as well as the wiring harness, cables and connectors — the electrical “nervous system” that ties Dragonfly’s systems together. Electronics boxes, avionics and science instruments will follow as mission partners across the country complete their own assembly and test campaigns.

“From here, it’s about populating that structure with electronics boxes, instruments, wiring, insulation — everything that will enable its mission,” Reeling said. “It’s all about getting Dragonfly ready to launch.”

Link back home

One of the most visible additions came in May, when the Dragonfly team at APL integrated the mission’s high-gain antenna, the primary system that operators will use to communicate with the rotorcraft and retrieve the science data it collects on Titan.

The high-gain antenna is a 34.4-inch-wide (87.4-centimeter-wide) disc made of electrically-insulating foam sandwiched between two metal plates that contain hundreds of small slots. Together, these slots will narrow and focus the radio beam back to Earth. Adapted from technology originally developed for planetary defense applications, Dragonfly’s high-gain antenna, larger than previously flown systems, is attached to a motorized arm that will raise the antenna when the rotorcraft is stationary and lower it into a locking mechanism before Dragonfly takes off again.

“Every time the lander prepares to fly to another location, we store the antenna so it survives the vibrations created during flight and prevents resonance that could interfere with the rest of the lander,” said Jackson Banbury, Dragonfly telecommunications mechanical and thermal lead at APL.

The antenna and its gimbal are designed and tested to endure the rigors of Titan’s environment, including frigid temperatures averaging around -290° Fahrenheit (-179° Celsius), swirling dust on the surface, and potentially liquid methane rain.

Shaken, sealed, delivered

From May through early June, engineers and technicians at APL put the Dragonfly rotorcraft through vibration and sealing tests designed to show that the fuselage’s structural backbone can withstand the loads of launch, entry through Titan’s atmosphere, and landing on the surface of this ocean world.

For vibration testing, the team installed mass simulators in place of the flight instruments and electronics being built and tested elsewhere. The ground vibration test gave the team a fleeting preview of Dragonfly in the air. Engineers suspended the rotorcraft’s structure a few inches off the ground from long bungee cords, then measured how mechanical vibrations at the rotor locations traveled through the frame to key sensors on the main body.

“Suspended for a few hours during that test – even barely above the floor – was structurally akin to Dragonfly’s first flight,” said Gordon Maahs, the Dragonfly mechanical systems engineer from APL. “It gets the imagination going about what actual flight will look like.”

The test also included a “sit down” configuration, lowering the lander onto protective padding so it rested on its skids while engineers measured how the structure would respond on Titan’s surface.

The sealing test was more unusual. Most planetary spacecraft are built for the vacuum of space or worlds with thin atmospheres. But Dragonfly is headed to Titan, where the surface atmosphere is dense, cold and about 1.5 times the pressure of Earth’s, so engineers needed to understand how well the assembled structure could keep that environment out.

The solution: pressurize Dragonfly’s outer structure to identify any gaps, cracks or holes that could allow air flow in and out of the lander on Titan.

“I’ve never seen a test like it on any other spacecraft,” Maahs said. “We get a total flow rate based off of the sealing test, and that feeds our thermal analysis to determine if we’re sealed enough.”

The results, Maahs added, were “extremely good.”

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Ed Whitman

NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Ed Whitman

NASA's Next Interstellar-bound Probe Is Ready to Get Back to Business...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 05:57:00 +0000

NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Southwest Research Institute / Serge Brunier / Marc Postman / Dan Durda

NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Wakes from Hibernation in Good Health (News Release)

Following its longest hibernation period ever of nearly a year, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has emerged in good health and is ready to begin transmitting science data gathered in the distant Kuiper Belt far beyond Pluto.

On June 23, flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, confirmed New Horizons, acting on stored commands uplinked to its main computer last July, had safely awakened from a 321‑day hibernation period that began August 7. With the spacecraft now approximately 5.9 billion miles (9.5 billion kilometers) from Earth, the radio signals carrying that confirmation took about 8 hours and 52 minutes to reach the APL Mission Operations Center via NASA's Deep Space Network station near Madrid, Spain.

The mission team typically places New Horizons in resource‑saving hibernation mode during long cruise periods. While the spacecraft is hibernating, operators do not send commands or retrieve data, but the spacecraft continues gathering and storing data around the clock from its heliospheric plasma sensors, Solar Wind at Pluto and the Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation, as well as its space dust detector, the Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter.

Alice Bowman, the New Horizons mission operations manager at APL, said that the spacecraft reported back to Earth, via the Deep Space Network, with a weekly status beacon. “Every status report through this hibernation period was ‘green,’ meaning all was well aboard New Horizons each and every week,” she said.

As New Horizons resumes active operations, Bowman noted, the team will begin downlinking spacecraft health and safety data, followed by data from the three scientific instruments. In about three weeks, the spacecraft’s onboard Alice ultraviolet spectrograph will look at the hydrogen gas distribution in the outer heliosphere, while the Solar Wind at Pluto, the Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation, and the Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter instruments continue their measurements, and the ground team conducts a series of spacecraft and instrument checkouts.

The team is also completing upgrades to the ground‑system software that will make it easier to maintain operations of the spacecraft. Tests are already underway and are expected to continue through the year.

New Horizons is operating on updated autonomy logic designed for operations farther from the Sun and to accommodate the expected reduction in power and the naturally occurring increase in radio‑signal travel time.

The NASA spacecraft’s exploration of this distant region of the Solar System marks the latest step in a journey that began in January 2006 with the fastest launch on record; a flyby of Jupiter in February 2007 that included stunning views of the gas giant and its moons; the first exploration through the Pluto system in July 2015; the first exploration of a Kuiper Belt object, Arrokoth, in January 2019, and unique studies of the Sun’s outer heliosphere and dozens of additional Kuiper Belt objects since then.

Source: NASA.Gov

The Latest Update on a Venerable Japanese Space Probe...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 04:49:00 +0000

JAXA, The University of Tokyo, Chiba Institute of Technology, Institute of Science Tokyo, AIST, Paris Observatory, IAC

Hayabusa2 Captures Images of Asteroid Torifune (News Release)

The asteroid explorer Hayabusa2 was launched in December 2014 onboard the H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 26. The mission explored asteroid Ryugu, delivering samples from Ryugu to Earth on 6 December 2020. Since then, the spacecraft returned to deep space on an Extended Mission.

On 5 July 2026 at 18:30 JST (error margin: ±1 second), Hayabusa2 successfully performed a flyby of Torifune, the asteroid selected as the first exploration target of the Extended Mission. (Time is a preliminary estimate.)

Observations with the onboard scientific instruments began in mid-June with the Optical Navigation Camera – Telescopic (ONC-T), which directly imaged Torifune on June 20. Observations with the ONC-T then continued with the primary purpose to support optical-radio hybrid navigation for the spacecraft during the approach to Torifune. From about one hour before the closest approach, observations were also conducted using the NIRS3 (Near-Infrared Spectrometer), TIR (Thermal InfraRed Imager), and LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) instruments.

These observations continued until immediately before the closest approach to Torifune but could not be conducted after the spacecraft had passed the asteroid. At present, only part of the data acquired by the scientific instruments has been transmitted to Earth. The remaining data will be transmitted to the ground during future operations.

Source: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

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JAXA, Maebashi Institute of Technology, Chiba Institute of Technology, The University of Aizu, Hokkaido University of Education, AIST

America's Next Great Observatory Is Now at Kennedy Space Center for Flight Preparations!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 06:57:00 +0000

NASA / Amber Jean Notvest

NASA’s Next-Generation Telescope Arrives in Florida Ahead of Launch (News Release)

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope arrived at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 21, marking the start of final prelaunch preparations before liftoff later this summer.

After teams completed integration and testing on the observatory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, they loaded Roman into a protective and environmentally-controlled transportation container and drove it to the port of Baltimore. There, the agency’s Pegasus barge safely transported the nearly 18,000-pound (8,200-kilogram) spacecraft down the coast of the Atlantic Ocean to its new home in Florida at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, which recently completed upgrades to prepare for Roman’s arrival.

Technicians met the telescope at NASA Kennedy’s turn basin wharf and offloaded the trailer carrying the observatory from the barge, where they connected it to a truck that transported Roman to the servicing facility.

When the spacecraft arrives at the facility, technicians will complete initial cleaning outside the building before moving the shipping container into the facility’s airlock. Once in the airlock, they will perform additional cleaning to reduce any remaining contaminants from the trip. The facility’s air filtration system will also scrub the air until the team can safely open the inner door.

Once inside the facility, technicians will unbox the spacecraft, raise it to a vertical position in the airlock, and move it into the clean room.

On Monday, June 22, technicians plan to remove the cover from the transport container and move Roman into the high bay. Later, technicians will use large cranes to move Roman to its work platform - called the Pantheon. During the observatory’s time at the processing facility, technicians will perform several tasks, including testing the six solar panels and inspecting Roman’s insulation and thermal blankets to ensure that the observatory is fully protected and flight ready.

Specially-trained team members will load about 290 gallons of hydrazine fuel into the spacecraft’s tanks.

NASA is targeting launch no earlier than Sunday, August 30, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy. This puts Roman eight months ahead of schedule.

After launch, Roman will travel to the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2. There, it will make observations that give astronomers the chance to study an incredible number of new objects. Roman’s wide field of view and rapid survey capabilities will reveal billions of galaxies, hundreds of thousands of new exoplanets, hundreds of blackholes, and will provide vast volumes of daily data for astronomers to study.

The observatory will also map how common different kinds of planets are in our galaxy and help answer big questions about the Universe, like what’s causing its rapid expansion and what distant worlds and cosmic objects look like in infrared light. In addition to its main instrument, which features a 300-megapixel camera, Roman will demonstrate technology designed to block starlight to directly image exoplanets and planet-forming disks.

Alongside Roman, the Pegasus barge also carried a weather cover for the Artemis III SLS (Space Launch System) core stage. The cover will protect the stage thermal systems while it sits at Launch Complex 39B in its short stack configuration. Because schedules aligned, the barge was able to transport NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission together with the Artemis hardware, maximizing resources to support missions across the agency during the Golden Age of innovation and exploration.

Source: NASA.Gov

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She's nearly home! NASA's brand new Nancy Grace Roman Telescope has officially been delivered to Kennedy Space Center to complete final fueling and integration in preparation for launch on Falcon Heavy later this year. pic.twitter.com/ZqLWQ9GtWd
— Jerry Pike (@JerryPikePhoto) June 21, 2026